


Endings

by nectocaris



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 16:50:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nectocaris/pseuds/nectocaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Jonny and Pat get together, or don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Endings

**Author's Note:**

> My first foray into AO3. Happy New Year everyone!
> 
> Idea for this fic was stolen from the Margaret Atwood story, Happy Endings. A HUGE thank you goes out to my beta bwinchester who made this fic into something vaguely intelligible. <3

Jonathan and Ashley get married.

To watch them live a long and happy life, go to A.

A

Jonathan meets Ashley at a Blackhawks convention in Chicago. She catches his eye, slips him her number with the photograph she wants him to sign. Perhaps acting on impulse, perhaps driven by a steadily increasing loneliness he hasn't fully become aware of, though he's only twenty-five, Jonathan pockets it. He calls Ashley the next day.

After eleven months, Jonathan proposes to Ashley, and they get married in the spring. Their wedding is as beautiful as it is simple. Patrick Sharp holds up his champagne flute and gives the toast: "Millions of hearts are breaking in Chicago and Canada now that Tazer's off the market," he says, and everyone laughs.

They have a good life together, Jonathan and Ashley. Jonathan is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame at fifty-two. He doesn't become the next Great One, but he does acquire a variety of great titles over the years: great playmaker, great two-way player, great husband, great father of two. He and his family move to Winnipeg after he retires from fifteen years with the Hawks, two with the Pens, and another three back in Chicago. Ashley is a successful pediatrician. Their kids, Rachel and Brendan, grow up to become hockey players and artists, respectively. A few times a year, the Keiths or the Sharps or the Seabrooks or Patrick Kane come to visit him or he them. Other than that, Manitoba remains fairly quiet. Jonathan learns to cook. Ashley masters Halo. They grow old together. Eventually they die. That's the end of the story.

B

Jonathan meets Ashley at a Blackhawks convention in Chicago. She catches his eye, slips him her number with the photograph she wants him to sign. Perhaps acting on impulse, perhaps driven by a steadily increasing loneliness he hasn't fully become aware of, though he's only twenty-five, Jonathan pockets it. He calls Ashley the next day.

Jonathan doesn't officially tell anyone on his team or his family about their relationship (despite suspicions) until the eleventh date. Patrick grumbles about how he can't believe Captain Serious is getting more tail, regularly, than he is. He makes a larger fuss than is perhaps necessary (but then everyone knows he's Jonathan's best friend, he's allowed). Brent scrunches his nose, Kopecky gives him a proud pat on the back, and Adam tells him to watch out for himself over Skype.

A few months later, Jonathan proposes to Ashley, and they get married in the spring. Their wedding is as beautiful as it is simple. Patrick Sharp holds up his champagne flute and gives the toast: "Millions of hearts are breaking in Chicago and Canada now that Tazer's off the market," he says, and everyone laughs.

Patrick Kane quietly excuses himself and dry heaves in the bathroom. Five minutes later, tie adjusted, smile recovered, he congratulates the couple. "If there's anyone who deserves to be happy, it's you," he tells them—though he's just looking at Jonny—before he hurries away from the line of well-wishers forming behind him. The only ones who notice the red around his eyes are Sharp and Burish who take Patrick under their wing for the rest of the night, mercifully plying him with shot after shot until he's too drunk to keep his body upright.

Two rocky, unproductive seasons later, Patrick signs with the Caps in a trade involving Alexander Semin. The Kane-Ovechkin-Backstrom line is one to be reckoned with, and Chicago loses the Cup twice in a row to the Caps in the finals. Their next drought lasts over two decades. Patrick and Jonathan never play together again. They promise to keep in touch, but they're in different conferences and over the years it gets more difficult, more emotionally taxing. The distance hurts Jonathan more than he'd care to admit to either himself or Patrick.

Regardless, Jonathan and Ashley have a good life together. Jonathan is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame at fifty-two. He doesn't become the next Great One, but he does acquire a variety of great titles over the years: great playmaker, great two-way player, great husband, great father of two. He and his family move to Winnipeg after the Hawks retire his number after eighteen years.

Ashley is a successful pediatrician. Their kids, Rachel and Brendan, grow up to become hockey players and artists, respectively. A few times a year, the Keiths or the Sharps or the Seabrooks or Patrick Kane come to visit him or he them, though Patrick doesn't come nearly as often as Jonathan would like. Other than that, Manitoba remains fairly quiet. Jonathan learns to cook. Ashley masters Halo. They grow old together. Eventually they die. That's the end of the story.

C

Jonathan meets a nice girl wearing his jersey at a Blackhawks convention in Chicago. She catches his eye, slips him her number with the photograph she wants him to sign. After a moment's hesitation, he pockets it, but he washes his jeans the next day and the faint pencil marks become light, illegible smudges. He throws the crinkled paper out with only the slightest twinge of regret.

A few weeks later, during a downpour, Jonathan meets a girl named Abby—straight brown hair; kind eyes; long, dark eyelashes—at the Starbucks down the street from his apartment. She orders a chai latte with skim milk and the last chocolate scone, perhaps because she knows he had been eyeing it the entire time he had been in line. He doesn't read too much into it. She coyly offers to share, even though he winds up getting a muffin, and he agrees if only because she doesn't seem to recognize him. They sit and talk for longer than he expected they would.

Over the course of the next year, they fall in love and everything continues as in A.

D

In this story, Abby is a short blonde with tightly curled hair, a wide smile, and a boisterous laugh that rings of nothing but trouble. Jonathan's instantly attracted to her. He tries not to read too much into it.

Over the course of the next year, they fall in love and everything continues as in B.

E

With one foot out the door, Jonathan remembers that he lent Patrick his only umbrella two days ago. Rather than face Q's wrath when he gets himself sick for running around in the rain, Jonathan decides to forgo the scone and stays inside. The chocolate wasn't going to do any favors for his diet anyways.

Twenty minutes later, Patrick comes around unannounced, pizza box with mostly intact pizza inside in hand, to play Halo. Thunder crashes loudly, and when Patrick tries to sheepishly cover up his nervous twitch, Jonny jostles him with his shoulder and pushes him in the direction of his couch. He's glad he didn't go out. After the worst of the storm has passed, they fall asleep in the living room, controllers sticky with pizza grease left tangled on the floor, and if Jonny wakes up with Patrick's breath against his neck, he tells himself not to mention it until Patrick does first. It worries him that he's disappointed when Pat doesn't.

Halo and pizza during a thunderstorm, followed by a warm nap, becomes a tradition over their next two decades in Chicago, well beyond the point of Patrick needing Jonathan's brand of comfort. Still, Jonny comes to look forward to a gloomy weather forecast, a wet spring just before the playoffs, an 80% chance of showers for the long, humid weekend. Patrick always comes. He supposes that they both must have just gotten used to it.

Jonny and Pat retire, both without families of their own. They keep their old apartments and spend the rest of their lives in Chicago, travelling to Winnipeg or Buffalo, separately, as necessary. They grow old together. Statues are erected in their names. Eventually they die. That's the end of the story.

F

Jonathan shatters his leg in a skiing accident when he's twelve years old. He's told by numerous coaches and ostheotricians that he doesn't have a chance of becoming a professional hockey player no matter how much he wants it, no matter how much he trains. All that his persistence gets him is disappointment and another year of physical therapy for putting undue strain on his leg when he pushes himself to skate too early. He stays in Manitoba for high school.

At age sixteen, he comes out to his parents. At seventeen, dream indefinitely deferred, he begins attending UChicago in kinesiology. It's perhaps a distant, distant second to actually playing, but he's smart and good enough at it, almost naturally so, to have a future wherever he wants.

At nineteen, he goes to his first Blackhawks game and, like the rest of the city, immediately falls in love with Patrick Kane. At twenty-seven, he becomes a trainer for the Blackhawks, but by that time, Patrick has already signed with the Caps in a trade involving Alexander Semin. They never meet.

The Kane-Ovechkin-Backstrom line is one to be reckoned with, and Patrick secures two consecutive cups with the Caps before he finishes his career there. Jonathan follows his progress throughout the years without ever really knowing why he's so drawn to him. He supposes that as a former hockey player, he has to appreciate that kind of greatness no matter what team he should be supporting.

Two weeks after he retires, Jonathan dies alone in his empty apartment in Hyde Park, unmarried at seventy-four, from a heart attack. That's the end of the story.

G

Jonny kisses Patrick the night they win the Stanley Cup. Jonny kisses anyone within reach, handing out affection as if he doesn't even care who's looking or whether they might be holding a camera. Patrick smells like alcohol and tastes quite literally like the Cup, tinny and surreal. It's a glorious night.

Jonathan assumes that Patrick forgets it even happened, he almost does himself, and months later, everything continues as in C.

H

Patrick kisses Jonny the night they win the Stanley Cup, just before they vacate their Philadelphia hotel room. As far as windows of opportunity go, this is perhaps the best shot Patrick's going to get so, buoyed by alcohol and euphoria, he takes it the minute they're alone.

Jonny tastes like beer. To Patrick's surprise, Jonny wraps a hand around the back of his neck and brings him down for another kiss, swipes his tongue at Patrick's lips as he pulls away.

"Fuck," Jonny says, leveling his eyes with Patrick's, keeping their faces close, expression loose and happy. "How much have we had?"

Then he shakes his head, and before Patrick has time to react, Jonny pulls him into a rough embrace. "Fucking love you, Kaner, you amazing little shit." He sounds as if he's going to cry.

They don't sleep that night or the next. Neither wanting to be alone in an empty apartment, Patrick comes home with Jonny. When Jonny brings two girls over, Patrick pretends not to watch them leave half an hour later, bruised and well-fucked. That could have been him, he thinks, and then goes to paw through the fridge because he shouldn't be sober enough to even think at all.

He doesn't mention it, any of it, and everything continues as in D.

I

There never was any girl.

Jonathan falls in love with Patrick at the end of a long shift, third period—pass, shot, and goal so perfect it could have been choreographed, but only by them. The realization is one of the most simultaneously painful and exhilarating experiences of his life to date.

That's not the end of the story. It's only the beginning.


End file.
